Step into the time machine of the UFC’s video archives with me for a moment.

Set the dial for June of 2006. Fast-forward until you see him, the 25-year-old kid with the red hair, the face that’s still almost like a blank canvas for artists who work exclusively in the medium of scar tissue, the head that makes such a pleasant target only in part because it doesn’t mind being thumped on.

He’s about to fight the man who will become the greatest middleweight MMA fighter of all time. But it’s OK; he has a plan.

“When I get in there and I’m in his face, I’m pressing the action, I’m roughnecking him, throwing him around, I’m punching him and just eating his shots, blasting him back in the face, and he’s not going to be able to handle it,” says the Chris Leben of 2006. The “him” in question here is, of course, Anderson Silva, who had come to make his UFC debut in Las Vegas that night.

“After he gets in there with me and I knock him out, he may want to go back to Japan or something where the competition’s a little easier,” Leben says, as if he is trying to offer career advice that he hopes will be genuinely helpful.

But apparently Silva liked North American competition just fine. He knocked out Leben in 49 seconds and then went on to win the UFC middleweight title in his very next fight. Six years later, he’s still holding on it. Six years later, opponents are still sitting through pre-fight interviews, trying to come up with something to say that won’t sound ridiculous later.

It’s a tough spot to be in. Just ask Stephan Bonnar (14-7 MMA, 8-6 UFC), who, on a recent pre-fight media call ahead of Saturday’s UFC 153 pay-per-view headliner in Rio de Janeiro, was eventually corralled into answering a more polite version of the question we’re all wondering: Just how in the hell do you think you’re going to beat this guy? How can you possibly watch Silva (32-4 MMA, 15-0 UFC) on video, see the things he’s done to competent and capable professional fighters, and then picture yourself doing what they couldn’t? When you imagine a route that takes you from here to there, what does all that uncharted space in between even look like?

And Bonnar? Bonnar told the truth. Bonnar resisted the urge to provide an overly optimistic assessment of his own abilities. Bonnar kept it real, as the kids say.

“I’m not going to out-finesse him,” Bonnar told reporters. “I’ve got to make it a little uglier and be aggressive and be able to eat a punch and land a punch.”

In other words, roughneck him. Go out there and be a tough guy, then hope for the best. I mean, why not? But then I think about years later, when Leben sat down for a talk with my old friend Ben Goldstein at Cage Potato, who asked him about that cautionary tale of a pre-fight interview.

“Here’s the deal: When you sit down with the UFC and give them a pre-fight interview, what are you supposed to say?” Leben said. “I’m not going to say they tell you what to say [during the interviews], but it’s certainly coached, and they want you to be a tough guy. So I couldn’t say, ‘Hey, I didn’t want to take this fight, I didn’t think I was ready for it, but I’m taking it anyway because the UFC told me I had to.'”

And yeah, it’s probably a good thing Leben didn’t say that because I doubt it would have gone over well. That’s how pre-fight interviews work. Everybody’s overflowing with confidence. They’re all coming off the best training camp of their lives. They don’t want to get into specifics about their strategy, but let’s just say they worked on some things with their coaches, and they’re pretty sure they’ve got this guy figured out. Just wait and see.

It’s only later you find out that they’ve been living on Top Ramen and limping around on an injured knee for the past three weeks, plagued by everything from the flu to existential dread.

In a way, low expectations are the best thing Bonnar has going for him in this fight. When he says that his plan revolves around being able to “eat a punch and land a punch,” you get the sense that fans and the UFC would be satisfied if he could do half of those things. UFC President Dana White will settle for a “fun” fight here, which you have to imagine would involve a lot of punch-eating for Bonnar.

Silva, according to his translated remarks on the media call, just wants to “do his part” for the UFC. Call me crazy, but that doesn’t sound like a man who’s too worried about being on the wrong end of the old “shock the world” cliche.

I’m sure Bonnar has something resembling a game plan for this fight, just as I’m sure it doesn’t begin and end with getting punched the face. He’s right that he’s probably going to have to take one or two, though. He’s also correct in assuming that “out-finessing” Silva is pretty much out of the question. So what’s he going to do? Try to give people their money’s worth, I suppose. Maybe hope for a lightning strike – figuratively or literally. He’s going to go out there and do his best against long odds because sometimes it’s your ability and willingness to take a beating that gets you to the payday on the other side. Sometimes all people want from your performance is a good time and a temporary distraction.

To Bonnar’s credit, he hasn’t promised much else. He doesn’t need to. Take a few, maybe give some back? Try to make it ugly, as if you’re the first person to ever think of that? Sure, why not. What have you got to lose, aside from a couple pints of blood? It’s all just for fun anyway. It’s not as if we’re expecting anything other than a fight that’s just weird enough to be interesting on a Saturday night in Rio.

Now get out there and roughneck him, Stephan. Who knows, maybe it’ll even work this time.